Hard Boiled Garlic Bread

So we had spaghetti last night. One thing I love about spaghetti night is I get to make garlic bread. I freaking love me some garlic bread. With 2 different variations already on here, I figured why not help you put one to more use. How’s that? Well if you’re like us, you get so full on pasta, you won’t always eat all the bread – which is where this post comes in.

(And there’s my Game of Thrones love for this week! Third episode tonight, are you watching?)

…No, nothing like that – just hard boiled eggs on day old garlic bread. I never heard of or fathomed putting these two things together. Not until one day when I made hard boiled eggs and realized I had no bread for toast – only, you guessed it, day old garlic bread. I gathered all my judgment as a man and a cook and thought, “Eh, why not?” Shortly after that decision, I was picking bits of my brain up off the floor. It’s rustic and simple and, I think, something worth blogging about.

But I didn’t want to make a post just telling you to put 1 and 1 together. So what better way to bring you this combination than the obligatory “How to boil an egg” post?

Older eggs are the best eggs to use for hard boiling. Try to avoid using fresh eggs because the membrane that lies between the eggshell and the egg white has not fully matured, which means, there will be almost nothing to keep the shell from sticking to the egg – making peeling an absolute nightmare.

The best way to test the freshness of the egg is by filling a bowl with water, putting the egg inside it and watching what it does:

If the egg sits on its side at the bottom of the bowl, congratulations, it’s pretty fresh.

If the egg is on the bottom of the bowl, but is doing a little dance and leaning more towards the smaller tip than on its side, then an air pocket is growing and it’s about a week old.

If the egg is straight up standing on the smaller tip with the bigger end pointed up like it’s possessed, the air pocket has grown even larger and is a couple of weeks old. It could still be used but I wouldn’t have them over easy.

If the egg floats to the top of the bowl like a balloon under water, then I hope you weren’t too keen on putting it to use. Throw it away. It’s already gone. Just forget it existed. It’s just an empty she… sorry, too soon?

The reason why it’s floating is because it is filled with hydrogen sulfide. If that sounds familiar it’s because that’s the gas that causes the ever popular rotten egg smell. You’d never know unless you cracked the egg because even though oxygen can get through the tiny pours of the permeable shell, sulfur dioxide is a bigger molecule and it cannot seep out of the pours the way oxygen can get in.

Ok, I’m done with science and I’m hungry so let’s get on with it.

I know boiling eggs can be intimidating. I mean, there are a lot of factors that can go wrong: How fresh the egg is, how many eggs you’re boiling, how big is the egg, how cold the egg is when it goes in the pot, how big the pot you’re using is, how much water is in the pot, how well your stove boils water… It’s safe to say the world is pretty much against you when you want to make boiled eggs.

But with that said, everybody and their mother’s lawn guy are going to tell you different ways to make a hard boiled egg. How long to boil it, how long to simmer, how long to leave it alone covered/uncovered while hopping on one foot and patting your head… I’m not here to say anyone else is wrong, I’m just here to tell you how I do it.

Take your eggs and put them in a pot big enough where they can be covered with at least 2 inches of water.

You don’t want to put them in boiling water or else they’ll crack from the temperature. Best put them in the pot, fill it up with water, and let them gradually cook as the water boils. You also don’t want them in a huge pot because then it will take the water longer to boil thereby overcooking the eggs because they were exposed to heat for a longer time. You also don’t want them in a small pot because there won’t be enough water and you’ll have issues with under cooking.

If you want to add vinegar in the water, it will help with keeping the white in the shell from seeping out if there are any unnoticeable cracks on the egg. But, you do not want to add salt to the water because salt raises the boiling point. Since the water coming to a boil is a crucial step in this process, you don’t want to wait for it any longer than what you have to or else you’ll have an overcooked egg. Which, if you haven’t seen, is distinguished by the green ring around the egg yolk caused by a chemical reaction with the iron in the yolk and the sulfur in the white.

Put the pot on high heat and bring to a boil. About 1 minute after the water begins to boil, turn off the burner and take the pot off the heat. Cover your pot with the lid and set the timer for 12 minutes. I know it sounds like something out of the Handbook for the Recently Deceased, but that’s the way the egg rolls.

Mmm… Egg rolls..

Once the timer goes off, introduce your eggs to some cold water. Either run them under it or put them in a bowl where you can rinse them off with cold water to cool them down and stop the cooking process.

Now here’s where everyone who has ever made hard boiled eggs collectively sighs. Peeling the shell has to be one of the most stressful moments of the morning. Many a egg has been mutilated and thrown against the wall in frustration from trying to cleanly and easily remove the shell. It took me a while but I finally found a technique that works. And you don’t need salt in the water, or baking soda or a lit candle in church…

Just tap the egg on the counter on both ends. Then take the egg and roll it gently on the counter so the entire shell cracks everywhere.

The membrane is the problem here. It’s why older eggs work better for peeling and why you wish you were never born every morning you want to make hard boiled eggs. If your egg is the recommended age (3-5 days old), this process should loosen up the membrane and make it easier to peel off the shell under cold running water.

Once the whole shell is cracked, slowly peel off the shell under running water and you shouldn’t have to clean any more eggs off the walls.

At some point, you should have put the garlic bread in the toaster oven to heat up and get crispy again. If the egg got cold during the deshelling process, I usually cut them in half and put them in the microwave for 10 second intervals.

Once the bread is warm and your eggs are ready, cut the rounded edge off an already halved egg, sit it on top of a piece of garlic bread, throw some salt and pepper on it and go to crazy town.

Why boiled eggs with this and not just a regular fried egg or the I-could-do-this-with-my-eyes-closed scrambled eggs? I think a hard boiled egg has a flavor profile that stands out against the other types of eggs. The yolk in particular is much more distinctive and goes with the salty garlic in the bread perfectly. But, that’s just me.

If you didn’t know how to boil an egg before – I hope you learned something. If you never had eggs and garlic bread before – I hope you try it.

I’ve been a fan of Audioslave for a long time. Ever since I first heard this song I was instantly hooked to their sound, their music, their message.

The song is called Like a Stone, off their self titled debut album Audioslave. Like many of their other tracks, this one has a strong religious tone to it – and one that I can strongly relate to. With Tom Morello decimating the guitar with the greatest of ease like always, and Chris Cornell’s voice singing powerful words that echo in your ears even after he’s done… This is easily my favorite Audioslave song.

If you’re wondering, I’m listening to this song right now because it’s Sunday. And for some reason, I can play Audioslave all day on Sunday’s. They just remind me of a time when I used to go to church every week with my family as a kid. If you’ve never heard them before, I hope you dig it.

14 Comments

My love for hardboiled eggs is embarrassing. I once made a huge batch (we’re talking like, 18-eggs worth) of egg salad for Easter and ate the entire batch within 48 hours. That may or may not have been like, three weeks ago.. but whatever.

Putting a hardboiled egg onto garlic bread is simply phenom. I want this for breakfast, lunch and dinner forever and evah.

Thank you for that egg science! I’ve often wondered why sometimes it can be so damn challenging to peel my hardboiled eggs. Now I know! Oh, and anything involving garlic and bread is something I want in my belly.

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